


Summer Snow

by foux_dogue



Series: Staff and Dagger [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Character Study, F/F, Golden Deer route retold through Marianne’s POV, Intrusive Thoughts, Mental Health Issues, Sexual Content, Slow Burn, Standalone companion to “Subtle Sharp and Dangerous”, Suicidal Ideation, dark themes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:48:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25134907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foux_dogue/pseuds/foux_dogue
Summary: Marianne wasn’t a fool. She’d read enough fairytales to know what fate awaited monsters surrounded by princes and priests and knights. While Margrave Edmund was convinced that her time at Garreg Mach would be a boon for his own ambitions, Marianne was certain that it would simply be the end. Goddess help her for wishing for it.Hilda was of a separate mind. After all, there were plenty of different ways to lift monstrous curses. The only question was if it would be with the sweetness that she preferred, or from the spilled blood that always seemed to follow Goneril axes.
Relationships: Hilda Valentine Goneril & Claude von Riegan, Marianne von Edmund & Raphael Kirsten, Marianne von Edmund/Hilda Valentine Goneril
Series: Staff and Dagger [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1820710
Comments: 10
Kudos: 35





	Summer Snow

**Author's Note:**

> This work is a standalone companion piece to [**Subtle, Sharp, and Dangerous**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21326053). It can be read entirely independently, but explores the same Verdant Wind storyline from a new point of view. Eventual spoilers for _Subtle, Sharp, and Dangerous_ ahead, including a slightly canon divergent Claude characterization.

Marianne’s revelation that she could speak with animals came in the form of a yellow parakeet named Nanette. The creature was the only member of the Edmund court to whom the Margravine showed any affection. The bird lived in the manor’s conservatory inside of a bell-shaped aviary that was adorned with tinsel, a tiny looking glass, and a birchwood perch. The Margravine often sought out the parakeet’s companionship, particularly after suffering through the tribulations of playing hostess. Sometimes Marianne even heard her singing to Nanette, her voice quiet and off-tune but still uncharacteristically kind.

At fifteen, Marianne snuck herself into the conservatory one evening after the Margravine had retired. Nanette peeped and fluffed on her perch, preening herself as she considered the strange girl’s approach. Marianne came close enough to make out the bird’s black marble eyes. _Let me free_ , they begged her, each word as clear and bold as the chapel bells; _can’t you see that I can fly?_

The margravate was a cold and bitter place. Derdriu in the south swooned from the breezes blown from the bay they shared, but Edmund’s slight cast northward turned the wind sharp and biting. The soil was rockier there than in the breadbasket of Riegan to the south, and managed little more than winter wheat and barley. They rarely traded with Kupala to the east, and had too small a fleet to consider sailing westward to Fraldarius’ bustling markets. House Edmund had instead been founded on the humble wealth of its black mountain wool, the fleece well suited for the dry chill of Almyran winters braved when the east grew too bold, although the discovery of a vein of gold running through its quarries had recently won the Margrave a Roundtable seat.

Edmund Manor had benefitted from the gold as well. The conservatory had been built only a few years prior to Marianne’s arrival. The front courtyard’s crumbling walls had been repointed, the stables rebuilt, the moldering tapestries lining the great hall replaced. When she’d been a little girl Marianne had slept on a straw bed, but now she could smell the subtle sweetness of duck down in her mattress when she bid herself goodnight. Tinsel and tiny looking glasses and a pretty, well-made perch. Sometimes she wondered what it would feel like to crush Nanette beneath her heel: wondered if the bird would thank her for it.

* * *

The monastery was a different sort of cage. In many ways the grounds surrounding Garreg Mach were the same as those in Edmund. The forests through which her carriage clattered, heavy with her trunks prepared for the year ahead, were dark and foreboding. Marianne heard wolves lurking in the shadows. _We’re hungry_ , they told her: _come here, girl, come stray._

She imagined the slaver dripping from their jaws while she worried over the needlepoint that the Margravine had given her. _Give your fingers something to do_ , the woman had suggested. Her magnanimity had been surprising. Then again, she’d been in high spirits ever since the news of Marianne’s departure had become common knowledge. Marianne couldn’t truly blame her. She understood the simple pleasure of keeping a clean, quiet cell.

“Oh,” Marianne suddenly gasped with the jerk of the carriage through a dip in the road, wincing at the prick of her needle into the flesh of her pointer finger. She sucked at the drop of blood beaded there. A swell of self pity filled her chest when she looked to her lap and saw that she’d stained the pink petals of her embroidered roses rust-red. She worried over them with the cuff of her sleeve, managing to do little more than stain the lilac of her dress as well.

_Clumsy. Foolish._

“Goodness,” she reassured herself, although the needlework’s simple calm had already gone. She fiddled with her needle for a moment longer before tucking it sideways into the pattern and setting it aside, still worrying at her pricked finger with her tongue as she did. Her eyes settled next on the swaying curtains half-drawn across the window. The dark emerald of the forest had begun to thin to chartreuse leaves. Soon they would be upon the monastery proper. The thought made something sour blossom in her gut.

 _You are an Edmund_ , the Margrave had told her when he’d bid her farewell. _I expect you to comport yourself accordingly_. She hadn’t needed a further explanation. Being an Edmund meant serving dutifully, she’d observed, and praying piously, and all the while nibbling at whatever fingers that would feed you. The Margrave was a clever man. He’d made himself rich by being an Edmund, using the surname just as deftly as he’d begun to use her as his heir. But despite the seat he’d won himself and all of the gold beside, he was still a fool. _You are an Edmund_ , he’d ordered, but somehow he hadn’t realized that what he’d really told her was _you are a monster_.

The carriage lurched again. This time it was enough to toss her forward from her bench. She cried out in surprise, adding to the din of her trunks upsetting from the rack above her head and the draft horses’ upset whinnies.

“Lady Edmund!”

Marianne winced, nursing a bruised elbow while she did her best to sit upright. The door swung open to reveal the coachman’s worried face.

“Gracious, forgive me, Lady Edmund,” the man said, ringing his cap in his hands. “You aren’t hurt, are you?”

“No,” she answered quietly, eyes downcast from his earnest gaze. “The horses...?”

“Nay,” the man reassured her, “never mind the horses. Good beasts for roads like this. It was the axel, and newly replaced, if I’m to admit that to you. Bad luck for it to break.”

_Bad luck._

“We’ll have to send for porters from the monastery,” the man continued, reaching forward to offer her a hand. “Good news is that we’re on the only road to Garreg Mach this side of the Airmid. No doubt someone will come upon us soon.” He paused to consider the idea. “Certainly they’ll agree to take you on as a passenger. I do apologize that your things will follow behind, but better that way, I think.”

“No,” Marianne repeated. She shrugged away from his reach, stepping out from the carriage under her own pretense and with her coach-bag under her arm. “It’s better that I go ahead alone.”

“You can’t mean to walk,” he sputtered. Marianne smoothed her skirts and kept her eyes steady on the deep ruts baked into the road. “My lady, we have not yet made our way to the monastery proper. These woods are known for wolves and rough men, worse yet.”

“It’s better that I leave,” she insisted. She winced at the breathiness of her order, nothing like the brassy conviction that the Margrave used to carve himself what he wanted. Marianne fisted her aching fingertip into her palm and mustered her voice into her throat. “It’s my decision. Please rest the horses. I don’t want them to be lamed.” She paused, and then thought, and added, “The Margrave will be disappointed if anything happens to them.”

“Lady Edmund,” the man challenged hopelessly, but she’d already started to charge ahead. Her skirts snagged against the dry brambles in the road. She did her best to ignore the tug and tear of the fabric as well as the rushing beat of her blood in her ears.

“Lady Edmund!

 _I can protect myself_ , she could’ve shouted back at him. Some parts of her even felt indignant enough to try. Magic had always come naturally to her, just as it had to her mother before her. No matter how many years passed, she would always remember her first lessons in coaching that gentle light alive in her palms, serenaded by her mother’s praising sing-song. Her governess had been more severe, but so too had been her lessons. Marianne could hurt as well as heal, now. Men hiding in the bushes didn’t frighten her.

 _They should be afraid_ , a voice inside her challenged. It made her pulse race faster. _Afraid of what you’ll do to them. Fleas. Louses. Burn them._

“Quiet,” she muttered quietly to herself, shaking her head to dry the warmth that had flooded her eyes. Her bag was growing heavier with every step. She sniffed and hiked it higher beneath her arm. A twig once buried in the mud now baked to clay clawed at her hem and tore a strip free. She ignored it, stumbling further forward until she lost the sound of the coachman calling after her.

 _Girl, girl_ , the wolves whispered. Marianne thought about the monastery. Tomorrow was the commencement. She was lucky to have arrived in time, delayed as they’d been by a rockslide triggered by one of the Margrave’s more eagerly-managed quarries at Edmund’s southern border. If her trunks were too late she’d be forced to wear the simple grey dress folded in her coach-bag. _Bad luck_. She’d look like a fool standing beside all of her classmates in their dress uniforms. She sniffed again. Always _bad luck_.

 _Come here, girl._

“Woah! My lady, a cart at your rear!”

Marianne tore herself from the wolves’ whispers to turn and spot a second carriage that had very nearly run her down. She gasped and stumbled sideways, dropping her bag in her wake. 

“My lady!”

There wasn’t enough time to run from this new coachman dressed in a tidy pink-quartz uniform. She shrunk in on herself as best she could as he approached her, head bowed like her own coachman’s in penitence for what he’d done. Not as if he deserved it: she’d been the one in the road, after all.

“Are you alright, my lady?”

“Y-yes,” she managed thinly. “I’m sorry.”

“Please, don’t apologize,” the man insisted. He glanced sideways and spotted her bag, brow furrowing at the sight. He darted forward to snatch it up and looked her over once more. There was nothing inherently cruel in his gaze. She read pity in it instead. It was nearly as bad: worse, maybe. Made her feel like she was three inches tall.

“Are you a student of Garreg Mach?”

She didn’t answer. It seemed a waste of breath. There was no other reason for a young lady in a dress wholly unsuited for walking alone along a road to find herself there. The man seemed to come to the same conclusion himself. He frowned and turned to face his carriage just when the door swung open.

“What is it? It’s _hot_ , Einar!”

“A traveler, Lady Goneril!” the coachman answered. Marianne heard a girlish huff and the rattle of the door.

“It’s a _road_ ,” the woman replied, “of course there’s _travelers_. Did you run them down?”

“N-no, my lady!” The man stiffened, his eyes darting back to Marianne as if to ask for contrition. Marianne felt herself quickly being cornered between two fast-moving forces. Bad luck, she thought again, and wished most desperately to disappear. The man stepped aside to clear the line between them.

“Oh,” the woman cried out at the sight of Marianne, “are you a student?”

It seemed to be a question that Marianne was doomed to answer.

“Yes,” she muttered meekly. She stared at her bag still gripped in the coachman’s fist and wondered if she needed anything hidden inside it so terribly bad.

“Who is that, Einar? Hello?”

The woman waved her arm. Rude as her words were, they were cheery enough to still be considered kind. The man’s face turned a flummoxed red by the moment’s lack of decorum. He cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders.

“The Lady Hilda Valentine Goneril,” he announced in the woman’s stead.

“Hello!” Lady Hilda Valentine Goneril peeped happily, now half-hanging from the carriage. Her cheeks were nearly the color of her hair, and it the same pink confection as the stripes lining the coachman’s sleeves. It was a warm day, Marianne had to admit. She tried her best to ignore the dampness gathering on her nape.

The man cleared his throat again. She realized with dismay that he was waiting on her answer.

“Marianne,” she whispered to him miserably. He smiled, lopsided but just as kind as Hilda’s blustering hellos.

“And from where do you hail, Marianne?”

Marianne pressed the scabbed point of her finger against her palm until she could feel her heartbeat in it.

“Edmund.”

A look of recognition flickered across the man’s face. He bowed subtly forward, afterwards turning on his heel to face his lady once more.

“The Lady Marianne von Edmund!”

“Edmund?” Hilda lurched further from the coach, her elbows hooked through the open window as the door swung precariously. “Well, come on, then! What are you doing walking to the monastery like that? Aren’t you exhausted? Einar, come bring her things. And let’s get _going_ , can’t we? Have I mentioned that it’s _hot_?”

“Yes, my lady,” Einar answered. He nodded at Marianne afterwards. “After you, my lady.”

Marianne could have scowled. It wasn’t as if she was unused to losing her agency to other men and women better at making their orders clear, but that didn’t mean that she enjoyed it. Then again, she didn’t much enjoy the idea of walking to the monastery, either.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I think you’ll have better luck without me.”

“Luck? Nonsense,” the man laughed, tossing her bag over his shoulder. “Lady Hilda has enough luck for all of us. Come, then, Lady Marianne. After you, if you wouldn’t mind.”

* * *

Marianne wasn’t certain just what _luck_ looked like, but it wouldn’t surprise her if it was something like the inside of Hilda Goneril’s coach. Unlike what the Margrave had provided for Marianne, Hilda’s car was prettily-painted and filled with silk cushions and dog-eared books scattered without much pretense nor prioritization. There was waxed paper smeared with syrup crumpled under one of the benches, and an array of glittering things spilled across where Hilda now hurriedly made her a seat. 

“There,” Hilda announced as she settled back into her own perch, “good.”

She smiled at Marianne. Her lips were stained the color of crushed berries, a pretty contrast to the white of her teeth. It was unsettling. Unlike the Margravine’s painted on smiles, Hilda’s seemed genuine, and yet what on earth was there in that moment to smile about? The coach was cramped and stifling, the road growing rougher with every roll of the wheels, and Marianne was certain that she didn’t smell like the sweet perfume with which each pink-silk inch of the coach had apparently been imbued.

Not that it was unpleasant. Rather, there was something familiar about the scent. Nostalgic, even. Marianne tried to puzzle it out with nearly as much energy as she spent trying to make herself as small as possible in her corner of the car.

“You’re the Margrave’s daughter, aren’t you?” Hilda asked her, smoothing the frilled layers of her skirt as she did. Marianne focused on the perfect eyelash lace and the neat half-moons of Hilda’s nails. Her fingers were long and slender and pale, although the ring finger of her left hand had a tiny scar across the knuckle. It was strange to see it against all of the woman’s neat symmetry.

“Yes,” Marianne answered, once she realized that Hilda would neither speak again nor look away until she did. Hilda nodded, apparently pleased.

“My brother knows your father,” she told her matter-of-factly. “He says he’s quite the riot. A better shot than Holst, too, when given the opportunity after enough wine.” Hilda winked. “You know Holst, of course?”

Marianne nodded. Everyone knew Holst. The Margrave called him _that stupid ox_. Only people that threatened him tended to be given a name like that. Marianne wondered briefly what he would call Holst’s pretty sister. Surely not _ox_.

“Of course,” Hilda answered for her. She sighed and rubbed at the nape of her neck, no doubt aching like Marianne’s was from the long westward ride. “Everyone knows Holst. Apparently he has a reputation at the monastery, too. To be honest, I don’t know why I’ve put myself to this torture — and the weather besides. Don’t you find it _terrible_?”

“Terrible?” Marianne echoed timidly, confused.

“The weather!” Hilda exclaimed with a moan. “Edmund’s north too, now isn’t it? I can barely stand Derdriu. However will we manage a full half-year of _this_? I hear that sometimes it doesn’t even snow. All of the work, and sweating while we do it? I’d rather not, to be terribly frank.” She sighed again. “And yet here we are. There. Look. See? You can see some of the turrets already. It doesn’t look much like a _monastery_ , does it? Or maybe it does, all up in the mountains like that.” Hilda hummed appreciatively. “Yes, maybe so. Oh, how many stairs do you think it has?”

“I don’t know,” Marianne said, stupefied by the constant barrage of Hilda’s voice.

“Too many,” Hilda promised her with another wink. “I’ll tell you what, first matter of business will be finding someone to carry our books. What do you think about that, Marianne von Edmund?”

“I... don’t know.”

“Well, _I_ know. Know that I’m not going to hike up a mountain with a satchel, to say the very least. Not that I think we’ll have much to choose from with our class. Did you read the rosters? No Gloucester is going to be much help at all, I’ll promise you that. Two merchants’ sons, so I suppose they’ll be the best for it.” Her eyes narrowed with a sudden mischievous spark. “Our house leader — Claude — have you met him?”

Marianne shook her head. If anything it was a wonder that she even remembered his name. Calling the Riegan heir _Godfrey_ was still second nature to her, memorized as it’d been back when her governess had taught her about Leicester’s tangled nobility.

“I have,” Hilda whispered, suddenly conspiratorial. “I was introduced to him by the Duke last winter. He’s a funny fellow. I haven’t yet decided if he’ll take this whole situation as a farce or something far more dreadfully serious. Let’s hope it’s not the latter. In any case, odds against him playing porter, regrettably. We’ll have to make friends with the merchants.”

“I don’t,” Marianne sputtered, quickly suffocating under Hilda’s rapid requests, “I can carry my own things.”

“Suit yourself,” Hilda laughed. “Say,” she added suddenly, gemstone eyes darting to Marianne’s hem, “oh no, you’ve torn your skirt!”

Marianne looped her arms around her knees, hoping that the move would be enough to swing her skirt under the bench. Hilda bent forward despite the effort, fingers already fidgeting towards the dusty snare.

“You don’t want to make your first appearance like that,” Hilda promised her. “Here, I can mend it for you, just put your feet up here.” She patted the bench beside her. “I have a needle and thread somewhere.”

“No,” Marianne quickly insisted. “That’s alright.”

“Nonsense. Walking any further will only make it worse. You’ll fray all the way up to your waistband.”

“No!” Marianne snapped. Her voice was louder than she’d intended. Hilda flinched, snatching away her hand to sit backwards.

“No,” Marianne added swiftly, more quietly, looking away. “Please. It’s alright. I... I’m tired. It’s been a long ride.”

“Of course,” Hilda quickly pacified. She offered her another bottomless smile. “Of course it has. I’m sorry. Let’s look where we’re headed, then. I’ll take my window and you take yours. Might as well see what we’re up against. A year is a long time, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” Marianne answered. Hilda smiled. Marianne looked away, if only to ignore how the expression had softened into something that seemed suddenly less sincere — or simply different, maybe, and who knew better than Marianne about the danger of different things?

* * *

She escaped from Hilda at the monastery gates and retreated to her new quarters before too many of her peers took notice of her ruined hemline. The quiet room was divine, cramped and too-hot as it was. Marianne tossed her singular bag onto the desk and slumped onto the bed. It would be better to change into her second dress, she knew, and to prepare herself for dinner. She managed to do nothing but stare into the ceiling with as much intensity as a mapmaker overseeing his charge. The ceiling stared back at her, unremarkable except for a spiderwebbed crack not perfectly plastered some time before.

 _A year is a long time_ , Hilda had said. Marianne teased the sentence apart. She was right, of course. The Margrave had made his gamble based on the number of months in a year. Enough for Marianne to make a name for herself, he’d guessed, and in a way that meant she’d advance his own. Enough for her to present herself to rich men she’d perhaps one day marry, enough for her to gather the gossip that the Margrave would hoard against all of the noble fathers and brothers that shared a seat at the Roundtable. Enough time for her to forget where she’d come from and replace it with Edmund Manor’s neat-painted halls. Enough time for her to find a hole, she thought, her mind wandering, eyes growing heavy: a hole deep enough for her to bury herself within. Tall windows and strong rafters and cruel nettles boiled for a long, long time.

 _A year_ , she promised to herself, lost now in the darkness behind her lashes. _A year is enough_.

“Marianne?”

A knock at the door. She startled awake from her drowsing, gripping tightly at her bedsheets as she listened to the shuffle of a pair of feet outside. A second knock.

“Marianne? Are you in there?”

She recognized the melody of Hilda’s voice. The woman tittered like a cheery sparrow, rapping her knuckles against the door once more.

“Claude’s asked that we join him for dinner. Won’t you come? He’s not _so_ bad.”

Marianne didn’t answer. She heard Hilda huff.

“That’s alright. Another time?”

More shuffling. Marianne sat up at the sound of something being pushed beneath her door. She watched as a little bone-colored envelope slid forward across the floorboards. 

“Breakfast, maybe? I hear the sweet buns are half decent. If you like sweets I’ll save you some. Or not — more for me, I don’t mind!” Hilda giggled. Marianne’s lips twitched despite herself. “Goodnight, then. Until tomorrow, Lady Marianne von Edmund!”

Marianne listened to her smooth footsteps until they’d disappeared down the hall outside. She waited for another long moment afterwards, still studying the ceiling as she mustered the courage to stand. When it finally came she crossed the short breadth of the room and knelt to pick up the envelope that Hilda had left behind. It was small and light, and sealed with pink wax pressed in the shape of the Goneril Crest. Holding her breath, Marianne slipped a thumb under it and cracked it open.

Something fell from the envelope as she folded it flat. Surprised, she set the paper aside and knelt again to find a shimmering glimmer waiting for her on her rug. Two, in fact. Marianne fingered the small gold studs in her ears as she looked at the earrings, and wondered if it was possible that Hilda had even noticed that they were pierced beneath the hide of her braided hair. The thought was replaced by the sudden shock of the jewelry itself.

 _Mountain laurel_ , Marianne realized, making out the delicate shape formed from clusters of tiny pearls. That had been the perfume in Hilda’s coach as well. Mountain laurel, just like the sort that had grown outside of her childhood bedroom. Her mother had called it _fairy flower_. Nothing had been better to weave into her hair. Marianne scooped the earrings carefully into her palm and stood to study the note that had accompanied them.

 _Marianne_ , a quick-drawn hand wrote, the cursive proper if a little crooked:

_I don’t like long rides, either, but they’re better with good company._

_Your friend,_

_HVG_

Marianne admired the earrings for a moment longer before she carefully placed them into the note. Then she folded it back against its creases again and opened one of the desk drawers. In the note went. She heard it scuffing against the pocket as she shoved the drawer closed. They were safer in the dark, she decided: better guarded against bad luck that would lose them to a wayward hand. Still, for some reason it made her sad. Everything. Always, and a year.

 _Girl, girl_ , she heard the wolves howling at the pale disk of the moon outside. _Don’t cry, poor girl, don’t cry._


End file.
